But is there support for anything higher-level than locks and atomic variables? (I'm asking -- I don't really know, my latest attempts didn't show anything better than that -- and that was in boost).

If not, adding multi-threading without proper data protection is just opening a whole new can of bugs. Java has synchronized and Ada tasks and protected objects. IMHO not having the monitor concept built-in into the language is just asking for trouble big time.

And being a user of boost myself I truly am thankful for its existence and it being half of the new standard, so to speak. It eases the pain of low level programming a lot, but a library can only do that much against bad/lazy practices not discouraged by the language.

I stopped buying anything sony when all their floppy disks demonstrated to be crap that developed faulty sectors with a hard stare.

I want to add that another factor is that the information displayed is to the point. The same happened with 2D point-and-click: what you got visually was there to inform. No 3D crap with camera angles that get in the way and that are totally unnecesary.

Platformers were like that: you needed to know the dynamics of the sprite and that was all; no second guessing were the terrain ended or started; what was traversable or not, etc.

Some titles manage to go 3D losing minimally from their 2D masters, but usually you end with some unplayable mess were movements are slow, go behind control, you don't know where your feet are and so on...

Do you think it is heavier? I tried ubuntu (8.10) and xubuntu in a similar computer (512MB, Atom) and it was a dog, it swapped so much once you opened firefox as to be unbearable.

Indeed, I was surprised at 9.04 working almost well in the aspire one out of the box. Maybe the whole distro has been streamlined?

Well, there's an Acer Aspire One with 512MB of RAM and 8GB of flash HDD. That's the one I have.

In this one, the ubuntu netbook remix runs decently but already hits swap from time to time. I had to uninstall some services to make it a bit more agile.

No, but I remember Winamp 4...

Ummm no, 512 is no longer OK, at least with a stock [K]ubuntu 8.10. I have an atom 320 box with precisely 512MB and swap starts to get used from the get go. I was quite surprised myself to find this...

I then moved to Xubuntu, but as some have already said, then you get xfce plus gnome, and the result is only marginally better.